Blog of the Week! ~ Art's Chili

Since it's Sunday somewhere and I can't sleep just yet, I thought I would get this post out a little early for some and right on time for others. Each Sunday, I highlight a great blog that I have come across in hopes of sharing that love and friendship with the blogging community.

I met Kat from Art's Chili about a month or so ago, just blog hopping one night and loved her writing style. She is funny and inspirational at the same time and I love her personality that comes through each time you read her posts.

Over time, I realized we had so much in common from our first real names, Kathleen, and how we initially felt about those and subsequently went for the reduced form of Kat. Her oldest daughter is Kaitlyn and so it mine, spelled differently, Caitlyn and she feels like a sister to me even though we have never met. She emails me and keeps me encouraged and is my kindred spirit of sorts. We just click.

So I wanted to take the time to let you meet this amazing energizing beautiful woman who took the time and let me interview her. Here is how that interview went and what I learned about Kat, and here she is:

Something that my readers may not know…that is a tough question because I have recently done several question and answer type posts and my 100th post with 100 things about me. I am not very mysterious to begin with so to come up with more that people may not know… I am going to have to think about that one.



OK. What about this. I am a home body. I truly would stay home almost all the time if I didn’t need to take people to the dentist and go to the grocery store. I am happiest when I am just home with my family doing what I do. Folding laundry, playing catch, reading aloud and yes, even washing dishes. I just like being home. Which is a bit of a problem sometimes because my husband is always going somewhere. In order to keep up I often find myself going along…and then I end up a little frazzled… Many a time he asks if I want to go on a date and I talk him out of it…because I just like being home. That is kind of boring isn’t it?



Oh, don’t get the wrong picture. I love new adventures. And will be the first to say “let’s do it.” But if it is just the day to day, I like the ordinary day to day routine. Make breakfast, teach the children their lessons, play in the yard, fix lunch, do my chores, fix dinner and bath the kids and tuck them in bed. If it is just to be the ordinary then I don’t like anything that interferes with that routine. I always feel cheated at the end of a day when I’ve had to be out and running around all day and don’t get to do what I really love. For that reason I try to keep all my errands and appointments on one day a week so I can be home the other 6.

1.How did you get the name for your blog?

The name for my blog is an easy question to answer. Chili Pepper is my husband’s nickname for me. And he is my Art. My blog started as a way to work on writing a book that he has been requesting for many years. And so that is it… I am Art’s Chili Pepper and I am writing our life. And the rest of the story of how my nickname came about, well, I am saving that for a special post.

2. What are the best and worst parts about blogging?

The best parts about blogging. I love writing. I always have. As a mother many parts of us must be put aside while we meet the demands of our families. Writing and journaling are two of the things I haven’t had time for…especially since my boys were born. I didn’t realize how much I missed writing until I started blogging and discovered how much I was enjoying it, putting words down for posterity. It is nice if someone reads it. But mostly I write it because it soothes my soul.

I really have been blessed to use it as a way to keep up with so many of my loved ones. Most of them live elsewhere. We have a few friends here in our home town but time, work, family duties and well, life, has taken most of our most beloved family and friends to other parts of the US and around the world. I found it increasingly difficult to keep up with them from day to day. Blogging lets me reach all of them at once. And instantly, too. What’s not to love about that?

And then there are the new friends I have made. How amazing is that? I have made many friends but some are extra special. I have found friends who share my preferences and quirks and beliefs. And that is like balm to the soul. Amen? Blogging has also enabled me to daily journal about all the things that make life special. The daily blessings that the Lord gives us. Those things that I never want to forget but, for a long time, got too busy to put down. I lament all the things I have already forgotten. Knowing that someone is looking to read them each day, compels me to make sure I do it, too! Peer pressure, so to speak.

The worst part about blogging? Not enough time. I spend more time than I probably should doing it and yet, would like to spend way more time on it. I tell myself I am not going to look at the computer after 7 am in the morning and then I have to go on the Internet to do something and next thing I know I am reading blogs and leaving comments and an hour has passed. OOPS!

3. If we were to visit your state, what are three must do activities or places we would have to do or see and why?

Well, the things that I love about my state may not interest most people. When others come to town they want to go to Washington D.C. or to Baltimore. We live just an hour from each. But what I love most is not a place, so to speak, but rather it is just here.

If it were Spring or Summer, I would take you to sit in my gardens and have tea with me. I would tell you to look around at how lush and green everything is. You could smell the fragrant butterfly bush. You might notice under our very large tree, we call grandma, how cool and refreshing the shade feels even on the hottest of hot days. At night, you would enjoy the millions of fire flies that light up the woods around us as if it were Christmas. And hear the cicadas humming.

If it were fall I would suggest a drive or walk down the back roads to see the amazing colors of the oak trees. You would notice that every step crunches because of all the leaves. The smell is something to stand still and take in. We would likely end the day with a bonfire and smore’s and some hymns as we listen to the crackling wood.

If it were winter, I would pray for snow because I think the ice crystals and snow covering the woods around us is breath-taking. When it got too cold, we would sit by the wood stove with some of my mom’s special hot cider which can only be made with the best apple cider in the world, from McCutcheon’s store in town.

Truthfully, in my home town, there is very little to do. We don’t even have a putt-putt anymore. One movie theater and some nice parks. That’s about it. And that is the way I like.

4. How has God impacted your blog or how you reach out to others?

I have been blessed to meet so many Godly women through my blog. They encourage and challenge me daily. I have been so busy child rearing, that I have not spent much time on friendships in the last few years. Many of my real life friends are at different places than I am. They are at the end of their child rearing years or at the very beginning. In fact, I can think of no one who is really in the same place as me right now. My real life best friend (who happens to be nick named Kat, too) has a daughter my Emma’s age (9) and she too home schools. Because she only has one child, life is a little different for her. In that, she can come and go and keep busy with many of her hobbies. Right now, and don’t get me wrong because I am enjoying every moment of it, my life is strictly here and now. So, meeting people, through my blog, who are in the same place as I am, has been a blessing from the Lord.

And being able to encourage others with my many years of experience as a wife, mother and most of all Christian has been a blessing to me. To know that I can use my words to help others along their journey in a way I often lacked... It can sometimes be so overwhelming and isolating to be at home doing repetitive work that quite often goes unnoticed… We need to remind each other to enjoy it, relish it and delight in it. How it makes my soul soar when someone says that something the Lord laid on my heart made their day a little better, their job a little easier or the heart a little lighter.

It is not always possible for me to go to help with the day to day or hands on of my real life peers, but I can easily spend a few minutes reading others blogs and encouraging them with the words God gives me, while my little guys have naps or I sit in a doctors office. Blogging is a way for me to do what God made my heart to do. I am naturally a person who reaches out to others, for better or worse, and to have an outlet for that…well, it makes me feel like I have value outside of dirty laundry and cooking dinner. Although, I think those are very important jobs, make no mistake about it.

5. If your life could be made into a movie, which actors/actresses would you get to play you and your family members.

I am going to have to really work on this one. I don‘t have television but we do like to watch old movies. I am not very well versed in actors and actresses. People start talking to me about this person or that and I know my eyes glaze over. After awhile they stop mentioning names because I don’t recognize any of them. If it is alright, I will ask the aid of my family on this one. They will be much better at it than I J.

OK. Here is the run down from the family:

Pa- would be Jimmy Stewart because all the characters he plays are really nice and upstanding people and everyone says that, “Allen is the nicest guy in the world.” Plus some of Jimmy Stewart’s characters are very witty and Allen is always injecting humor here and there.

Mama- Barbara Billingsley or Donna Reed because she is the happy home maker.

Kaitlin- Anna Popplewell, because she looks like her and because she has the same personality as Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia movies or Lucille Ball because she loves to sing and dance and perform for a good laugh.

Brianna- Megan Follows- She looks like a brown haired version of her in the Anne of Green Gables series, although she lacks the melodrama of Anne

Emma Rose- hands down she is Georgie Henley- she looks like her and has the super sweet, honest and gentle spirit of her character, Lucy, in the Narnia movies

Nathaniel- Zack Mills, the little boy who played Stirling in the Kit Kitredge movie. For one thing he looks like him. For another he is methodical and logical and a perfect gentlemen like the well bred Stirling Howard V.

Aedan- Harrison Ford, Well, gee he loves adventure and anything that blows up.

Samuel- baby dumpling from the old Blondie movies or Jerry Mathers (Leave it to Beaver) because no one can find mischief like our Samuel

Elisabeth- she is adorable like little Cookie from the Blondie movies but she loves to sing and dance and is everyone’s sweet heart like Shirley Temple.

So that just sums up another wonderful heart and inspiration person who loves the Lord with all her heart. If you haven't stopped by Kat's blog, Art's Chili, please do so. Become a follower, leave a comment and tell her Hello and welcome her into our lives, once you do that, you will have a friend for life.

Congratulations Kat on being my Blog of the Week!